DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos is a game developed by PHL Collective and published by Outright Games. It’s now available for purchase on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Series S and X, and PC, and this review was done on the Xbox Series X version of the game.

DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos is a sandbox dungeon crawl-style game set in the DC universe where you’ll play as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and you can freely switch between the characters at will. It takes place in Happy Harbor, the first location for the Justice League headquarters, which later become the base for the Young Justice team within the DC universe, so DC fans will be happy to see that some residents of Happy Harbor will make an appearance, such as Snapper Carr.

With the main villains for the game being Mister Mxyzptlk and Starro, I like that this game has featured characters that don’t often get time in the spotlight. It seems that since the 2021 version of Suicide Squad, Starro has been making more of an appearance in DC titles. There are other DC villains and characters you will come across, and you’ll fight or assist favourites such as Lobo, the Bounty Hunter from space, Poison Ivy, and even a character I had no idea even existed, Blue Snowman, a villain from Wonder Woman’s comics.

The gameplay is kept to a basic layout as the game is targeted towards younger players, so combat is easy to perform with some fun special attacks like Superman’s heat vision or Batman’s exploding batarangs. As you fight and defeat enemies, you’ll earn experience which can be used to level up skills and base stats using a very easy-to-follow skill tree.

While exploring Happy Harbor, players will be able to use vehicles on the streets or the characters’ unique travel skills such as gliding, flying, and lasso whipping.

Out of the three, I personally use Superman for getting around as flying is the fastest and makes finding collectables a bit easier. Comic books can be found scattered around the world, and these are the collectables that can be used as currency to unlock new outfits for the three heroes.

As you progress in the story, you will meet up with the other Justice League members, such as Green Lantern, Aqua Man, Cyborg, or the Flash, and while you can’t play as them, they act as an assist feature and come to aid you in combat.

The audio for DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos is backed by some great voice actors who have previously played the characters. Superman is voiced by Nolan North, Batman is Diedrich Bader, and Wonder Woman is voiced by Vanessa Marshall, and as you play, the team will talk amongst themselves about current events or throw around some funny banter. Some of the voice lines can get really repetitive during combat, but after a while, it is easy to ignore, so just enjoy the banter and dad jokes that Superman can’t stop telling.

The difficulty is pretty easy and fair, with health potions that can be used to revive or heal downed teammates and enemies that aren’t that big of a challenge. It also supports two-player local play, but sadly, not for the campaign. The Instant Action mode will allow friends and family to play with you, and while it’s still fun, it doesn’t give any kind of story.

The graphics are very bright, which further emphasizes being targeted at a younger audience. Happy Harbor features a lot of colours and the characters are all a chibi-like style, which makes them cute to look at. Like many dungeon crawling games, it’s played from a top-down bird’s eye view, and the cutscenes remind me of early 90s cartoons, with mild flashing lights and bright colours to draw the eye. It made me feel like a kid again, sitting on the floor watching cartoons on a Saturday morning.

There are a few bugs, like getting stuck in a vehicle, and this was the most common one I ran into, and I had to quit and reload the save to fix it. Towards the end of the story, there is a mission where you are defending against waves of enemies attacking the Justice League base, and during this, I was able to see where the enemies were spawning, but they weren’t moving, so there was no risk to failing that mission as they never attacked while being stuck in place.

DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos is a fun for all ages dungeon crawling brawler game that keeps true to the DC universe, featuring lesser-known characters and random lore. Despite the small bugs I ran into, I had way more fun than I was expecting with this game.

From the chibi-like style of the characters to the outfits you can unlock, there are still things to aim for after finishing the story. It is hard to place why, but the game brought back my childhood memories and kept me engaged the whole time I was playing.

Written by: Shane Walsh